Comments | terebi_me: the readin'/writin' hokey-pokey

terebi_me

the readin'/writin' hokey-pokey

Jul 16, 2008 10:16

Heavily edited. Doesn't matter. Must learn to shut up, internet-wise. Life is a process.

Excellent article/blog post on narrative. Makes my brain hurt. I'll study it later.

Currently reading High Wizardry by Diane Duane - superb girl-oriented, pointy-headed, YA fantasy/science fiction that occasionally veers into her kind of long, ecstatic rants ( Read more... )

link, recommended media, writing

Comments 9

aquamarcia July 17 2008, 04:14:07 UTC

It's a pity you edited your post, since my reply will now exist without context. (I took a long time thinking about things and how to get the best condensation of my thoughts. Ironic, given what follows...)

Language is like Kung Fu, except just about everyone does language and relatively few do Kung Fu. A classic tenet of Kung Fu (and Chinese philosophy) is that you learn, and then forget what you learn, and the forgetting is important and good. If your best writing occurs when you let it flow and not when you pay attention to the mechanics of the craft, you've achieved that good state of forgetting. Sure, learning new things or recalling old lessons can be good as well, (Neal Peart still takes drum lessons from time-to-time) but if, ultimately, you've found your own way, you've hit it.

terebi_me July 17 2008, 16:04:23 UTC

Ah well, don't worry - it's got context for me ( ... )

rhuby loves jem aquamarcia July 17 2008, 18:20:42 UTC

>:( i hope whomever told you to stop writing didn't mean ~forever~, i hope they meant "let it build up" kind of pause/stop. you ARE a writer, it is your essence. you couldn't be able to stop any more than you could stop taking breath. and i will tell you, you do not suck. i have seen some suck. and it wasn't yours.

i think success has very little to do with book learnin' (and paying your dues unfortch...) and a lot more to do with happening to be in the right place at the right time...we've kind of already talked about that topic. which, sucky if its true, is not possible to predict, and really doesn't always reward those who deserve it.

please please bear this out. permit it to pass over you and through you. you are NOT a failure, let it wash, as much as you can, and if there's something any of us can do for/with/to you, please call it out. :)

they told me to stop. terebi_me July 17 2008, 22:37:59 UTC

i hope whomever told you to stop writing didn't mean ~forever~, i hope they meant "let it build up" kind of pause/stop.Well, they were my professors, talking to me at my thesis orals, where I had presented a novel as my thesis. They told me "You really shouldn't do this; you're should really just stop. You don't have what it takes." I don't know if that meant "temporarily"; it sure as fuck didn't sound like it. I couldn't tell them the dictionary definition of "novel"; I couldn't defend any of my writing choices, or characterizations, or the setting or tone or anything. I had no defense whatsoever. And they tore me to shreds and smirked at each other. After four years of taking classes from these people, learning from them, really enjoying the time I spent with them, I took what they told me as the face-value honest truth, and I cried for days, because my life no longer had any structure or purpose. And then I wrote six excellent short stories that summer because I just couldn't stop myself, and I felt like such a dirty, bad, wrong, ( ... )

Thread 9